


Harvest

by Chellodello



Series: Levi is a Questionable Grief Counselor [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Badass!Historia, Canon Universe, M/M, Obligatory dance fic, canon divergent as of chapter 52
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chellodello/pseuds/Chellodello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Usually he was the one who offered words of wisdom in the form of shit metaphors. He’s not supposed to be the one that received the poop wisdom.<br/>Or;<br/>Eren word vomits his way to Corporal's heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harvest

**Author's Note:**

> This was my, insanely late, attempt at a sort of halloween fic for the snk world. Shhhhhhhhh, it's never too late for some spoopy.

 "The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her . . ."   


* * *

 

In Maria, and later in Rose, the night of the final harvest was marked with a grand festival for the whole community; with small treats, games, and the crowning of a harvest queen or king. It was a time for thanks and time to relax after what always seemed to be a hard season. Yet in Wall Sina there was a curious deviation from this tradition.

Unlike in Maria and Rose where the food was actually grown and toiled, the harvest really didn’t have an impact on the citizens of the upper ring all that much; they had food all year round regardless.

No one knows just how the festival traveled over the walls and onto the calendars of Sina children but it does; and somehow the festival celebrating a season’s worth of work, came to be a time of revelry for the people of the upper ring as well.

This particular harvest festival the scouting legion is somehow roped into doing crowd control during the event.  Because of the female titan excursion which then morphed into the titans inside the walls fiasco and then finally into titans kidnapping humanity’s hope nightmare, there had been deemed a serious need for the retraining of the military police in basic titan–related procedures. So while they were off doing that, it fell to the scouts and the stationary guard to take up the mantle of public law and order for the night.

And while this is a warm welcome from usual duty for most people, Eren can tell that Levi is more than a bit annoyed at the order. It was understandable he supposed.  _‘It’s not my job to babysit a bunch of hoity-toity snobs while the military police sit with their thumbs up their asses. I have my hands full with watching you and your bratty friends as it is.’_  Orders are orders though and Levi complies but only with a firm resolution that if he was going down he was dragging the rest of his team with him.

The short man makes an entire squadron; over 90 men and woman, accompany him in what he is sure is some kind of punishment. He splits them up into small groups to monitor the crowds, spewing more insults than instructions and being even sourer than usual the whole while. Truth-be-told the teenager has to violently resist the urge to roll his eyes at Levi’s dramatics.

Eren’s group consists of Historia and the Corporal himself; a team Levi thinks will give him the smallest headache possible. Unfortunately for the corporal, who was usually so good at predicting the way the chips would fall, he has failed to take into consideration that unlike the Historia and himself, Eren is not from Sina and the festivities of the night are new and exotic to him, prompting question after question.

 “What are they doing?” the brunet asks, pointing at a group of small children who run past them screaming. Wither it’s in joy or terror, he isn’t sure.

Levi groans and massages his temples “What do you think they’re doing?” Eren watches as his captain valiantly tries and fails to resist the urge to dust his jacket after a child brushes past him with sticky fingers. “I thought you said they had festivals in the shitty backwaters of Maria?” Many months by Levi’s side have taught him that he starts insulting the lower walls when he’s cranky, so Eren doesn’t take the jib to heart.

Historia smiles at him pityingly and both teenagers silently come up with a plan and move to stand on the either side of the corporal, effectively shielding him from the screaming children. He doesn’t thank them but his eye does stop twitching, so that’s good.

“I was a bit shocked when I had my first festival in Rose. They don’t celebrate it the same way we do here Heichou.” She implores in that tone of hers that instantly makes you want to listen to her. Levi shrugs. Sensing she’s not going to get much more out of their captain Historia turns her pretty blue eyes to Eren and explains. “Here in the inner walls, it’s not so much a festival to celebrate the end of a long work season, but more of a celebration of another year that titans didn’t attack the wall and ruin the harvest.”

Eren scrunches his face in distaste. “That’s really gross.”

“I suppose it is when you really think about it.”

“Besides, titans did attack the wall this year. A lot of titans, people died, people in all three walls. It’s not a joke.” Titans are never a joke. He could understand they upper walls not putting much stock into a titan attack before Stoheiss, but continuing to belittle the threat after makes his blood boil.

He positively vibrates as images of the destruction that was caused, the destruction he helped cause, flash before his eyes and he subconsciously bites the inside of his cheek.

Levi senses his mood change right away and swiftly works to defuse the anger that had long been his defining trait. He punches Eren’s arm with much less force than he could have. “Don’t get your panties in a twist Eren. If they stopped their shitty tradition now, it’s just another thing titans have taken from them. Let them have it.” The hidden reassurance and the knot of anger in his chest loosens a bit. The black haired man knows how to play his attitude like a master; has Eren down to an art form.

“That is true.” Historia interjects and ponders for a moment. “I guess when bad things happen, people need things like festivals even more than usual, to make you realize how lucky you are to be alive.”

“But why are they dressed up like titans?!” Eren is unable to hold back his real concern any longer and blurts out the question that has been bugging him all night.

Indeed all around them children and a few adults ran around dressed in nude colored fabrics and donned masks depicting exaggerated titan faces. They danced around in the candle lit streets stopping at stalls with their bags that were full of what looked to be treats. It was just plain eerie seeing miniature titans laughing and playing all around them.

“You really don’t know anything do you?” Levi doesn’t wait for an answer. “It’s an old wives tale to ward off titans, not that it would ever work.” Historia nods in agreement “Legend has it that if you dress like one of them they’ll see your stupid face, think you’re one of them and leave you alone.” The short man shrugs. “It’s bullshit of course, but you know that, actually everyone does now, yet here we are. Stupid is as stupid does.”

Levi gets even chattier than usual when he is cranky.

 “And the treats?”

“Well, what’s a festival without treats?” Historia chimes ignoring the sour mood of their captain. She points at a stall and sniffs the air with a dreamy look on her face. It’s the most relaxed he’s seen the blonde in weeks. “That one there sells spiced apples with a caramel sauce. I haven’t had one in years, not since I joined up anyways…” She stares longingly at the stall, her sentence trailing off into the night. Eren’s never had whatever a caramel is before, but from the look on Historia’s face it must be wonderful.

Levi stops walking. “If you’re going to piss yourself making goo-goo eyes over them, you can spare us and just get one.”

The blonde hesitates, raising her hands in placating manner. “Sir, I couldn’t. The town—“

“—Isn’t going to sink into the earth because one little girl had to go stuff her face with sweets.” It is phrased rudely and as a dismissal but both soldiers see it for what it is: permission.

A grin breaks out on the Historia’s face and she dips down in a strange fashion that he has seen other nobles do. He assumes it’s a sign of respect because Levi allows it. “Thank you Heichou, I won’t take long I promise.” She darts off, her green cape swishing in the breeze behind her.

“That was very nice of you sir.” Eren remarks with a tender look in his green eyes. He’s not surprised, not really. Despite what many would think, the corporal cared about his comrades deeply; it was simply buried under all the blunt-bordering-on-rude honesty and scatological humor. If you spent as much time with the man as Eren did, as what remained of the 104th did, than it was as easy to see as the sky.

Levi snorts. “You know me, bucket of puppies.” Trusting that Historia will be able to find them once her treat was procured; they make their way through the streets trying to find an area that was less densely packed. “She could use something sweet in her life after all that bullshit.”

He doesn’t need to say what bullshit; they are both painfully aware of the effect retrieving Eren and losing Ymir had on the tiny girl. On everyone. As much as Levi resented being out here doing what he considered grunt work, Eren was entirely sure that he was going along with it for their sakes. Being cooped up in the hideout was hard on everyone, and tonight’s excursion was a much needed break for everyone.

Levi occasionally shouts orders at rowdy teenagers and inattentive parents, but other than that the trip is made in relative silence.

Eren finds it almost funny. His entire life until now he had found silence to be uncomfortable. After that day in Shiganshina the mild discomfort took on a darker edge. If there was silence then his mind would without fail wander off to that day and everything that went wrong afterwards. The silence was too much to bear most of the time so he tried to fill it up: by talking, by yelling, by picking fights, by any means necessary.

But ever since the trial, ever since he had been put under the corporal’s watch, the silence didn’t bother him as much. Levi had once told him that if you didn’t let the grief out then it would eat you from the inside. It something that changed the way he looked at silence completely. It bothered him still, but he could appreciate the stillness of it, the simplicity of not talking and being in perfect understanding with a person that he had discovered in the corporal’s presence. Because now when he talked, or yelled, or was generally a pain in the ass, it wasn’t to keep the silence away, it was to get the things that made the silence miserable out.

The area they’ve wandered into is a part of the festival that has considerably less children and instead hosted music being played on strange fiddles, soft drums, and many other instruments he’s never seen before.

Couples danced merrily, occasionally switching partners and laughed drunkenly. There were a few soldiers here as well, some from the legion, most from that garrison, none that he knows personally. Half of them are doing their duty and making sure that the festivities didn’t get too rowdy, the half were being rowdy themselves. At least this tradition is the same in the uppers walls as it in the lower ones.

When a couple swerves too close to them Corporal tsks in distaste and alters their course to avoid the worst of it; as if to protect him from something as simple as a few drunken men. The titan-shifter is simultaneously moved to roll his eyes and smile fondly.

Without any warning at all the smaller man stops dead in his tracks and Eren can’t help but bounce into his back.  The night is brisk but the brief moment of contact warms his entire body. Levi glances over his shoulder and raises a thin brow. “What?” he spits out.

The brunet raises his hands in a placating manner, not knowing just what he has done. Such was usually the case. “What what?”  _‘Smooth Eren, smooth’_

“You’re staring at me with those creepy bug eyes of yours, its fucking unnerving. What’s gotten into you today Eren? You’re even more annoying than usual. Which is saying something.”

The teenager smiles warmly at the insult. _‘You are one sick puppy Eren.’_   He thinks is a voice that sounds an awful lot like Connie. He may be right, but he is used to the corporal’s harsh words and able to see beyond them to the underlying concern. It makes his tummy lurch pleasantly.

“You needn’t worry Levi, its noth—” It take only a moment to realize that he has mad a grave error and Eren’s eyes widen in horror. Of all the stupid things he could possibly say: calling the corporal by his first name to his face. He can hear Armin chastising him now. ‘Oh Eren, you’re never going to learn to think before you speak are you? This is why you irritate so many people.’

Inner Armin is right, of course.

At the slip up Levi narrows his eyes and steps into his space, proverbial feathers ruffled. “So it’s Levi now huh brat?”

Eren wishes the earth would swallow him up or there was a convenient wall to throw himself off of. “No, Levi— Sir!” Fuck he did it again. “I mean Corporal Levi Sir. Sir.”  Double fuck why couldn’t he just stop talking?!

 _‘Whoa, that’s pretty brave of you Eren. We’ll mention that about you at you funeral._ ’ Inner Sasha laments in his head. Not for the first time Eren wonder if he’s really as sane as he thinks he is.

Levi presses closer, almost close enough to bump chests, and bores into him with searching grey eyes. Eren finds it ironic that Levi constantly told him that he had a penchant for staring at people to the point of unnerve, but he never seemed to think that his own gaze could unnerve just as much. Probably more

Definitely more.

It’s a strange moment, the two of them simply staring at each other, in a corner of a festival surrounded by humans dressed as titans and comrades in arms probably watching; but like so many things where Levi is concerned it isn’t as uncomfortable as it should be. Eren has an inkling of a feeling as to why, but tries not to dwell on it too much.

 _‘Damn, you’ve got it baaaaaaaaaaad bug eyes._ ’ comes the part of him that sounds way too similar to Ymir to be comfortable.

Yup, definitely lost his mind.

Surprisingly it is the corporal that breaks the eye contact first and instead looks toward the makeshift dance floor with a huff.

“I truly, honestly, can’t tell if you’re getting braver or stupider every time you open your big mouth Eren.” The low lamplight casts a warm glow on the entire area, illuminating one side of the corporal’s face and casting long shadows on the other. It’s striking.

Eren has never been the kind of man to be particularly moved by beautiful things. He could recognize them and he could appreciate them but ultimately the intrinsic beautiful of an object, n concept, a person; didn’t matter all that much to him.

Yet the sight of the corporal in this light, in this place, with him, makes Eren see the underlying beauty of Levi, just as much on the outside as on the inside. He had always been aware of how beautiful in character the man was but it had never really occurred to Eren that Levi was beautiful in a tangible way as well. It was something he doesn’t understand how he could miss before. It was plain to see in the curve of his jaw, the furrow of his brow and upturn of his nose.

This sudden epiphany makes his face flame in embarrassment and his tongue even looser, which a damn shame given his established habit for speaking without thinking as it was “Would you like to dance sir?”

His superior’s head snaps back to him so fast that he is certain he hears several vertebrae snap.  _‘Wow that is literally the dumbest thing I have ever said._ ’ He thinks as he unconsciously takes a step back _. ‘That answers the brave or stupid question though. Definitely stupid, what is wrong with me today?’_

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Levi says in an accusatory manner, as if he has asked him to roll around in the mud rather than for a simple dance.

Predictably enough Eren gets irritated at the tone; frustration is his default emotion most of the time. He stomps his foot in the dirt. “Is that such a queer and idea sir?”

“Yeah, it is.” Levi answers simply and uncrosses his arms, still looking at him with equal parts irritated confusion and amused curiosity, a look that he often received from the corporal.

 _‘In more way than one.’_  speaks a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Jean, which of course, only makes the green eyed boy act even rasher. Acting on impulse, a familiar motivation, Eren grabs Levi’s hand in his own. If the man is affected by this, he does not show it, only continues to dissect him with his gaze. “It is not. Sir.” 

Levi’s hand is small and rough from countless hours of work but fits in his larger one with ease and comfort.  Eren has held hands with many people in his life time: his mother when he was younger and needed her guidance, Mikasa when he was tired and needed comfort, Armin when he was injured and scared. Holding Corporal Levi’s hand is at once similar and completely different.

Eren has often taken liberties with what he is hesitant to call, but has no better word for; his favor with humanity’s strongest. It was in his nature to push and push until eventually something pushed back. Levi  _always_  pushed back but never hard enough to suggest he had overstepped whatever inconsistent boundaries he had placed on their relationship.

The brunet thinks back to the previous intimate contact he has engaged in with the corporal and finds them to all have one thing in common: They had all been initiated by Levi. At once Eren is afraid that asking for contact has at last landed him over the line of acceptable conduct, though he is not sorry he has done so by any means.

Levi interrupts his thoughts before they are able to turn to complete panic. “Okay, fine. Let’s dance. But if you scuff my boots with your freakish titan feet I’ll feed them to you: fair warning.”

Eren’s face splits into a wide grin, the brightest since the kidnapping affair weeks ago “I will do my best sir!” Levi scoffs and shifts his hand so that he is the one clutching Eren’s instead of the reverse and leads him to the area where couples were dancing.

“That’s what you always say before you mess something up, isn’t it?” There is no bite to the comment.

Eren can’t help but sass back. “Yes, but I do try though.”

He should have expected the slap to the back of the head given how many risks he was taking tonight. “I’m going to have to do something about that tongue of yours one of these days. It’s going to get you into a fuckton of trouble when you decide to be cheeky with someone who isn’t as benevolent a babysitter as me. I’d cut it out myself but first of all, ew, and second you’d just grow it back, so what’s the fucking point?” Levi chastises but doesn’t let go of his hand as he drags them to the fringes of the dance area. Eren enthusiastically allows himself to be dragged.

If the soldiers in charge of watching this area are confused at seeing humanity’s strongest and humanity’s hope stumble into some semblance of a dancers hold, than they don’t dare say anything about it.

It becomes quickly apparent that despite Eren’s enthusiasm, he has no idea what he is doing. The only dances they had in Shiganshina were free for all’s; lots of clapping and stomping with loud hollering. This is apparently not the way things are done in Sina.

“You have no idea what you’re doing do you?” Levi doesn’t wait for an answer, he doesn’t need one; he can read the panic rising in his eyes like an open book. The corporal lets go of his hand to cross his arms across his chest. Immediately Eren laments the loss of the appendage. “Of course you don’t, why would you? Once again I’m going to have to bail you out of another mess your big mouth got you in. They don’t pay me enough for this.”

The teenager’s ears burn hot. Things like this always seem to happen to him and though he doesn’t think corporal is really upset, it is annoying to constantly crash and burn when he was watching.  He silently swears to do his best.

The corporal tuckers around him arranging his arms and legs in the proper position, chattering various insults and sarcasms as he does so. Eren can’t believe there had been a time when he thought the man to be stoic and silent because nothing could be further from the truth. Levi was a regular chatterbox when he wasn’t actively fulfilling his role as his superior. Trying to tell the others this insider tip earned him many blank stares and flat out laughter in his face.

 _‘Next you’re going to tell me that Commander Erwin wears a toupee. That’s just your awkward hero-boner for Corporal Short-stack speaking.’_ Okay maybe Ymir, and her constant pointing out of other people’s boners, wasn’t best person to channel right now.

“—the hell that girl has gone off too, I told her to get a caramel apple not grow the tree from scratch. Oi, Eren are you paying attention as all?”

He hadn’t been, or he would have noticed that Levi had finished arranging them into the opening stances for whatever dance was playing. He is not stupid enough to say as much. “Of course Heichou.” It was always better to agree with him, even if he didn’t know what he was agreeing to.

Eren dares to think that Levi smiles for a brief moment. “You’re completely full of shit, but that’s nothing new.” He points to the couples dancing to the fiddle music. “Watch what they’re doing, that’s the basic step for this kind of thing.”

The eerie feeling from earlier this evening comes back as he tries to memorize their movements. If it was creepy enough seeing children dressed as caricatures of titans, but to see fully grown adults donning masks of humanity’s greatest foe makes him almost queasy. It feels almost callus to actually be a titan in their midst.

“Don’t worry about their costume crap, just focus on the dancing Eren.”

He tries

The dance was made up of several a fairly quick sequences. The partners step toward each other in sweeping steps, then hopped. They repeated this action a second time, bringing them face to face. They joined hands. Repeat the first step together twice. Step, hop, step, hop.  At this point there was variation in the dance. Some people had the lead place one arm around the other and swing them in a half arch, while others put both hands on their partners waist and fully lifted them off the ground in a half arch.

“This is overly complicated.” He announces. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of dancing? Dances aren’t like this back in Rose or Maria.”

“Lucky them.” Levi intones with all seriousness.

After watching a few more times Eren thinks he has the moves down in theory. “Is there a lift that you prefer?” he asks.

Levi shrugs. “Whatever floats your boat kid, you’re doing all the work.”

It takes a moment before Eren is able to understand what is meant by that comment and when he does it causes his to tilt his head in confusion. “You’re not leading sir?”

The black haired man fixes him with a dead stare. “Nope.”

The idea that he was going to essentially manhandle the corporal felt strange and left his mouth dry. It felt wrong, just plain wrong, to Eren. He cannot, for any reason, understand why this was expected of him.

“But why?”

“You know there was once a time when I gave an order and people just obeyed it.”

“I wasn’t aware that dancing fell under your chain of command Heichou.”

Levi kicks him in the shin. Hard. “It does when my partner is an idiot.” Okay, okay maybe he’d gone a little too far with corporal’s good graces. “Because if I had a competent partner, one without shit for brains, they would realize that the taller person generally leads, and since you’ve decided to start growing like a weed these last few months that would be you.”

He was aware in a ‘ _back of the mind cosmic’_  sort of way that Levi was a small man. But that was easy to forget given his larger than life presence and unshakeable personality. There is just over 10cm separating them, a fact that he has always known but is only just beginning to process the implications of.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“Oh.” Is all he is able to say other than,  _‘oh no he’s cute’_. On a regular day he would never think to describe humanity’s strongest soldier as something as banal as  _cute_ , but for some reason given the many revelations of tonight, it seems to be flashing in his head like a flare signal. This is bad.

“…I understand.” He manages to say with a grim nod. This is enough a response for Levi who moves several paces so that they are in the opening stance.

“Good.”

Eren’s steps are shaky at first and he miscalculates just how much force he needs to hop. He nearly crashes into a titan-masked couple beside them twice. He can’t help it, the fact that he’s leading when he has no idea what he’s doing, makes him uncomfortable.

“Does it bother you that much?” Levi comments. It’s easy for him to say, he knew what he was doing. And it’s not that it bothers him, it’s that he is suddenly hyper aware of his every movement, every misstep, every stumble. It was like the first time he had used the 3DGear all over again.

“A bit sir.” He concedes.

Levi exaggeratedly rolls his eyes and stops the dance. ‘ _What a drama queen’_

“I’m going to have to spoon feed this to you like you’re a child aren’t I?” Eren wants to think on the implication that corporal  _doesn’t_  see him as a child a little while longer because that is very  _very_  interesting to him, but there isn’t time because like usual Levi is asking a question that he doesn’t wait for an answer to. “Think of it as a fistfight, you’re good at those yeah? Except this fight is very specific, if you don’t step at the right place, twist at the right bar, than you’ll get your ass handed to you. By me. Though you should be used to it at this point.”

Levi takes his arm and places it around his waist with his hand lying flat just above his hip. Eren knows there is no way that he can feel his skin through the starched material of his shirt and the thick coolness of the gear belts, but it causes him to audibly gulp anyways. Levi snorts in amusement, his earlier sour mood all but forgotten. “Don’t ruin your pants over something so silly Eren, it’s just a hip.”

This, of course, doesn’t help at all and Eren is not amused. He likes his internal crises to be taken seriously, thank you very much.

“Sweet Rose, grant me serenity. Alright for the volta you can glide or lift.”  Eren nods gravely. “To glide you do what we’re doing now and guide me. I’ll jump on my own; you just have to make sure I don’t fall on my ass. Or scuff my boots.”

 _‘Heichou, man, let the boots go.’_  Eren thinks privately, but guides his superior through the air regardless. It’s not unlike the assist drills he had been taught in the academy. Thankfully it goes smoothly.

“Good enough. Now to lift you just lift me. Even you can figure that one out.” Eren quickly rearranges his hands on either side of Levi’s waist. From this position he can literally grasp just how small the man is. It’s a strange, yet not unpleasant sensation, holding someone in this manner. Levi fixes him with a knowing look, prompting, “I’m not glass, I’m not gonna break, you can hold a little tighter.” He is unprepared for the corporal’s hands to cover his own and push down so he’s gripping his hips much harder. He gulps. He can definitely feel the narrow bone and lean muscle beneath the uniform and belts now.

He had to be doing this on purpose; he’d be stupid not to notice how fluster the teenager was becoming and Levi was many things; crude, anal retentive, obsessive, just to name a few, but stupid was not one of them.

“Problem Eren?”

Dumbly he manages to shake his head ‘no’.

“Then let’s go.” The green eyed boy is nearly certain he seeing a ghost of a smile being suppressed on the man’s lips.

 _‘Definitely doing this on purpose.’_ Not entirely trusting himself to not blurt out something to make himself look even more like a child with a puppy-crush Eren he palms Levi’s sides and lifts.

Levi is only held above him for a moment, less than a second really, but when their eyes meet Eren feels something electric pass between them. Any of the other moments they have shared with each other could easily be categorized and understood: A hug, a press of hands, a comforting word or two. But this was something he could not put into words. It was plain to anyone with eyes that Levi could read him like an open book, but doing the reverse was often confusing and difficult. Just when he thinks he has a feel for how the smaller man thinks he is made painfully aware that he does not.

The teenager is used to not understanding things; nearly everything important in his life was a mystery to him: What was in the basement? Where was his father? Why could he turn into a titan? Could he really control titans? Being confused was a feeling that he had learned to accept and move past.

But this feeling in his gut is a mystery he feels he is just on the brink of cracking. He wants to know what to call the almost gentle look in Levi’s eyes; it is innumerably different from all other he has given him and it simultaneously makes him want to puke and sing. It causes Eren’s heart to race in a way that he had thought only killing titans could bring about.

In short; it takes his breath away.

 “This one, definitely this one.” The brunet blurts out the moment the corporal’s scuff free boots touch earth again.

“Someone’s eager.” is all Levi says and in a matter of moments they too are joining the throngs of dancing couples. It comes easy after the instruction. Placed in the prism of it being a fight, an extension of their collective training and experience, the dance becomes as familiar to him as soaring through the air with his gear.

Its not frustrating any longer: its fun.

If he really thought about it, they sure made a strange sight: A titan shifter and humanity’s strongest soldier slacking off their duties and playing at a bastardization of court dance. The pure ridiculousness of it all moves Eren to laughter and Levi to a small smile.

Traditionally people swap partners for this kind of dance, but Levi will have none of that. Eren laughs heartily when another couple splits and attempts to switch partners with them. He is almost sure that Levi hisses at the person in a titan mask who reaches for his hand. Luckily Eren is able to wrap an arm around the corporal’s waist and sweep him up and away from the oncoming confrontation before any real damage could be done.

He likes to think it’s because Levi doesn’t want someone else to dance with him as much as it is about not being inclined to touch people whose hygiene he could not confirm.

The thought makes him laugh more than it should. It’s all so ridiculous, but in this crowd of masked-titans, they are soldiers at rest, they are brothers in arms put down; they are a world in their own. There is fluidity in both of their movements and when the brunet feels brave enough he adds his own steps into the mix. His partner doesn’t miss a beat, attuning his movement to his perfectly.  They no long part completely, instead they swing away and curl back together, meeting in the middle. Half and half, give and take.

The song changes into something with a similar beat but a much faster tempo and they adjust seamlessly.

Levi spins in much tighter than previously, bringing them flush together thigh to chest. Instead of resting his hands at Eren’s elbows as he had done in his initial demonstration of the lift, he clutches at his forearms, his shoulders and at last to cradle his neck.

The teenager grows used to the weight of Levi in his arms and cherishes the trust he places in him to do so. He becomes familiar with the grooves of his torso and the callouses of his hands as they swing back and further in circles, gradually picking up speed, spinning tighter and tighter, and jumping higher and longer.

The moon and the sun. Pleasure without separation. There are no words spoken, but there need not be; there is clarity and understanding in the once terror ridden silences. Ever since Levi had literally dropkicked into his life Eren thinks he has never been so in tune with another person so perfectly.

Feet moving gracefully and eyes locked on each other to the near exclusion of the outside world, they are quite the sight for soldier and civilian onlookers alike.

This is how Historia finds them.

Of course.

“Yoi! Eren, Heichou~! Over here!” 

His name being called is an unwelcome jolt back to reality. Eren whips his head in the direction of Historia’s voice, _how on earth could he have forgotten she was returning?,_ and stills his feet causing Levi to crash into him full spin.

And Maria did the man know how to spin.

It literally takes his breath away ad takes all of Eren’s strength to not fall over. He wraps his arms around the smaller man to help steady them both and miraculously no one falls, which is good because corporal would not appreciate getting his boots scuffed at the very ass end of the dance. 

This of course is a problem in it of itself though because he now literally has an armful of Levi plastered over his entire front.

“Eren.” Levi mutters against his clavicle. The two syllables of his name have never sounded as heavy and moist as they have in this moment.

There are cogs turning in the back of his head, long ignored synapses flaring to life as the fog finally starts to clear and Eren is so close to understanding, so close to putting the final piece of the proverbial puzzle together as to why he is all bothered by the corporal and—

 _Oh_.

“Oi, Eren, let go.” Levi says and Eren can feel each and every tiny brush of the man’s fingers in stunning sensation as he brings them his chest to push away. He wills his arms to work, to loosen, not tighter. Somehow they do.

Levi looks over his shoulder to where Historia is walking toward them and Eren looks at the corporal willing clarity to come to him.

It’s so close he can almost taste it.

Historia is just out of earshot when Levi sends him the smallest of smirks. “Paint a picture kid, it’ll last longer.”

He flushes and his mind blanks, all thoughts of clarity fleeing at the casual comment. Did the corporal just flirt with him?

“Here you are! I’m sorry I took so long, the line was quite long and it was a little difficult spotting you two all the way over here.” The blonde girl apologizes unnecessarily; it is literally impossible to be mad at Historia afterall.

Still, the titan-shifter wants to pull at his hair at her horrible timing. He desperately want to ask questions about what just happened, about how he’s feeling, about how those two things are connected, but even he can tell that the moment for that is past. It will have to wait.

Eren is very bad at being patient and shifts uncomfortably. Historia looks worried for a moment before remembering just what she is holding in her hand. “Ah, yes! I remember that you had never had a caramel apple before Eren so I brought you back one.” He takes the stick that held the apple and looks at it skeptically. He’d rather have had the emotional epiphany that was stolen from him, but this treat will have to do.

“Oh no, I didn’t want one.” Levi says dryly.

Eren smells the treat. It smells sweet, really sweet.

The blonde girl is undeterred by their superior’s sarcasm. “I was going to get you one as well Heichou, but I saw that the owner of the stall didn’t wash his hands between dipping the apples and I knew that would be unacceptable to you.”

“This is why you’re my favorite out of the brats Reiss.”

“Kiss ass.” Eren quips. Without even looking over, Levi smacks Eren’s hand away from the caramel sause he was about to run his fingers through to test the texture. “You’re almost too barbaric to function, just eat it.”

 _‘Spoilsport’_ the brunet thinks but obeys. He takes a bite and—

“Holy shit, this is delicious!” The explosion of sticky sweet from the caramel and tart from the apple are heavenly on his tongue and he might be able to ignore how completely grotesque this whole titan-festival was as long as he can have more of this caramel stuff.

He feels rather than sees Levi roll his eyes.

“Actually, if I may be so bold,” Historia starts looking at the corporal. “I was hoping I could ask a dance of you as well Heichou. You are Eren were very good and it’s been a long time since I’ve danced a volta.”

Eren promptly chokes on his apple.  Of all the things he had been expecting, that was certainly not it.

Had he not been having an internal and external crisis, Eren would have seen the strange steely look that Historia was sending the corporal, he would have seen the way that Levi narrows his own before answering “I’m just the belle of the ball tonight aren’t I?”

But he doesn’t see those things so once he manages to swallow the chunk on the treat lodged in his throat all he knows is that Historia is walking toward the dance floor and Levi is flicking his forehead telling him to “Try not to turn in a giant rage monster for 5 minutes Eren.” before following the girl.

There is a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach as he sits himself down on a stone bench nearby. He can just barely make out the two small people in the crowd preforming what looked to be a variation of the same dance they had done. This time Levi leads.

It shouldn’t bug him, but it does.

 _‘Man you have got to be the dumbest person in the wall to not have figured it out by now Jaeger.’_ Supplies the voice in his head that sounds like Jean. As much as it kills him to agree with anything remotely Jean-ish, imaginary or not, he might just agree.

‘ _Whatever.’_ The teenager thinks as he watches his friend and his– _the_ – corporal dance in the distance. If he wasn’t going to get answers to his ‘Levi Problem’ then he was at least going to drown his woes in this apple. Eren tries not to sulk, but fails as he takes a vicious bite out of his treat which somehow seems less sweet now.

* * *

 

Levi goes through the motions of the dance was ease.

“I wasn’t lying sir you are very good at this.” The Reiss girl says as she steps away only to step back. Knowing what he does of her past, it is safe to assume that the steps of the dance were imbued in her muscle memory since she could walk; unlike Eren who stumbled around like a new born deer, just as skittish too, for the first few bars.

Speaking of which, Levi sneaks a look over Historia’s shoulder at Eren who is clearly moments from throwing a temper tantrum. He isn’t sure if the sight of his pouting face makes him want to smack it or kiss it off him. _‘What an idiot. He probably doesn’t even know why his panties are in a bunch either.’_ If anyone got to be pissed about this whole affair it was Levi. He was the one who knew better, he was the one who let the dance get as far as it did, he was the one whose ability to do his job would come into question, not Eren.

Teenagers really are the worst.

“I can’t help but think that you enjoy dancing with him more than me sir.” His eyes flicker back to the girl who only smiles knowingly and nods toward the titan shifter. There it is; the motive behind this little tete-d-tete. Levi doesn’t give the blonde girl enough credit, underneath that unassuming face she was just as cunning as the girl-friend-whatever she had lost to the traitors. He’s almost impressed.

“You sneaky little shit. How long were you there?” He lifts her tiny form up for the volta. It’s nice to lead every once in a damn while.

“Long enough. May I speak freely sir?” Historia asks when he sets her down.

“Why the hell not? Everyone else has had a touchy feeling emotional talk with me lately so I guess it’s your turn. Also, don’t scuff my boots.” He spins her away and hops back.

Historia frets a bit, not sure where to start. “Eren is, how do I say this gently…?”

“A complete idiot?”

“Well…. yes. Eren is dumb, he doesn’t think before he acts. He doesn’t filter his speech at all. He probably could talk titans into submission if given to the chance.  He doesn’t play well with others and generally speaking until he met you we was the sloppiest boy I had ever met, and that’s including Jean.”

Levi makes a face. He was very well aware of Eren’s many short comings, he pointed them out to him on a daily basis, that didn’t mean he wanted to hear them said by someone that wasn’t him. “Is there a point to this? Should I be taking notes? Eren Jaeger is a human trainwreck 101?”

The blonde glares and again he is almost impressed. This kid had everyone wrapped around her finger with this goddess bullshit, he wouldn’t be making that mistake ever again. Historia Reiss clearly meant business. “Despite all of that, Eren is very easy to care for. He’s honest and loyal, if not a little bit emotionally obtuse. I’ve known him long enough to know that once he feels something and understands it, he’s all in. He doesn’t do anything in halves.”

Levi thinks back to the dance they shared only minutes again, how he had been shit at first, how he felt his hands shake when he gripped his hips, how he lifted him with ease once he was comfortable, how he took to the dance like a duck to water simply because he had expected him to. Eren would do anything evi asked of him, and that was possibly the problem. “No he certainly does not.”

“So when he figures out just what he feels for you, which will probably be soon given how hard he is glaring at me right now, he’s going to tell you. He’s going to act on it.”

The black haired man is not dumb, he knows this already. He knows Eren probably better than Eren knew Eren. He knows what makes him tick, he knows how he thinks.

“He’s a horny teenager and I’m his hero or some bullshit like that.” He dismisses. This was the conversation he did not want to have, had told Connie would never happen. Yet here it is with bells on. “It’ll pass.” The idea makes his stomach flop traitorously.

“With all due respect Heichou, that’s crap and you know it.”

This is not how these things usually go for him, usually one of the 104th has a crisis and he offers some words of wisdom in the form of a shit metaphor and things go back to normal. He’s not the one that gets the poop wisdom.

“I don’t want to tell you what to do sir, I don’t think anyone can make you do something if you really don’t want to, but if I’ve learned anything from Ymir,” a cloud of sadness crosses over her eyes and not for the first time Levi wonders just how tangled the web of love and loss was within the 104th.  “—it’s that to hide who you are and how you feel is the same as not living at all. Eren is so full of life and while he can be troublesome—“

“That’s putting it lightly.”

She smiles. “—I really think he’s worth the trouble. And I know he thinks the same of you. It takes two to tango and from what I saw tonight you two danced quite well together. He adores you.”

He knows he does, he’d have to be blind not to, the kid practically came in his pants from a simple dance. The question was what Levi was going to do about it.

“So when he realizes he loves you, and he will, you should give him a chance to do it sir.”

Sweet Rose, how the mighty have fallen. It was a sad fucking day indeed when Lance Corporal Levi spends his days being lectured to by teenagers with emotional baggage the size the of the colossal titan. He wonders if he’d always been this much of a pushover or if there was some weird pheromone wafting from the 104th that turned everyone around them to crybabies.

Probably the later.

The music comes to a close and they bow to one another, signaling the end of the dance. Levi looks to where Eren is seated again, staring dejectedly at his apple stick as if it had done him personal harm. The idiot doesn’t even realize that he was feeling jealousy right now, how on earth could Levi deal with that kind of idiocy every day?

He already does, but that’s not the point.

 _‘Decisions, decisions. So many to make but so little time.’_ He swears he thinks this in Hanji’s voice. Great on top of everything he’s going crazy, hallucinating shitty glasses for ethical guidance. Fan-fucking-tastic

“Reiss this conversation never happened yeah?”

“What conversation sir?”

“Exactly.”

When they make their way back to Eren, Levi is prepared for something stupid, and he doesn’t disappoint

“Welcome back sir!” He salutes needlessly. Maria this kid was a mess. “How was your dance?”

“Oh it was alright, I’m afraid I’m not as good as corporal is, it probably wasn’t very fun for him.” Historia answers with the delicate quality back in her voice. ‘Clever, very clever.’ He thinks.

Eren looks to him for confirmation and receives his best dead stare.

Levi is not doing this, his emotional reserves, short as they were,  have been used up for the day,  the week possibly, and all he wants is to go back to the hideout, wash his _everything_ thoroughly and never dance another step in his life.  “We’re heading back to the rendezvous point and if there is any god the rest of your shitty friends will be there waiting. I’ve had enough of this triangle bullshit, let’s go.” He sets a brisk pace towards the entrance of the festival but of course Eren presses his luck and jogs to stand at his side.

 “I’m glad sir.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Levi snaps, his nerves worn down. He really didn’t get paid enough for this crap; he should get overtime for emotional abuse at the hands of too adorable for their own good teenagers.

“Your boots. She didn’t scuff your boots and for that I am glad.” Eren smiles as if he has given him some kind of gift and Levi wonders just what he has connected his desire not to have fucked up boots with in that strange little brain of his. Still he is so earnest, so heart-wrenchingly dumb in his relief, that Levi is unable to stop himself from taking his hand in his own and lacing their fingers together.

It is at once better and worse than when their hands had just been clasped together earlier. He feels the unnaturally smooth regenerated fingers against his own dry and calloused ones and wonders if it’s always going to be like this: uneven but fitting.

This duality between what is probably right and what he was going to do anyway was a feeling that the corporal closely associated with his actions toward the titan-shifter.

Green eyes, still much too wide and creepy, stare at him in amazement. “Sir?”

Historia giggles.  

“Just shut up Eren. Don’t say another stupid word. You either Reiss. No one talk at all. In fact the next person that opens their trap is in charge of mucking the stalls until the day they die.”

It looks as if is physically killing Eren not to talk, not demand answers, but he does as he’s told and doesn’t say anything. Instead he walks even close to the corporal, their hands swinging lightly as the walk through crowds of people dressed as monsters. Eren grins sheepishly at him, as if he is the fucking answer to some kind of prayer, and it’s so disgustingly saccharine that wants to throw up.

Sweet Rose, Levi _loves_ this boy.

Ew.

**Author's Note:**

> Keeping with the tradition of all the larger piece in this series, the quote at the beginning of the story comes from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. This fic was never supposed to A) be this long and B) take this long to finish, but here we are. I had a bit of a hard time getting into the groove of writing Eren's side of things, but I hope I pulled it together.  
> The dance that they are preforming is a mix of several variations of the Volta and a Salterello. They are dances that were popular in Tudor/Elizabethian England and other parts of europe because there was much less restrictions on the moves than in other court dances at the time. How kne dance history would ever come in handy?  
> Examples can be found here:  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hUJGCgSk_c  
> And here:  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx002D9N6qU  
> Thank you all for reading, and I hope to see you in future installments of this series!


End file.
